Album Reviews

This is not your typical Blue Note album. Sure, Oscar Pettiford and Ed Thigpen swing impeccably on bass and drums, but fronting baritone sax, trombone and guitar? Sounds more like a description of an oompah band than jazz, but honest, jazz it is.

Baritone sax player Gil Melle is probably the most obscure composer and bandleader in the entire Music Matters reissue series. He was briefly on the jazz scene, recording for Blue Note and Prestige in the mid-‘50s, before moving on to movie and TV scores. He worked during that transition between the end of bebop and the many streams that were to come. If the question in 1956 was “What do we do after Charlie Parker?,” Melle’s answer seems to have been to go both forward and backward at the same time.

Take “The Arab Barber Blues,” a midtempo swinging blues that initially takes you back to mid-‘40s jump and Coleman Hawkins. Most of the time, Melle does a creditable impression of Bird on the bari, swinging hard but in an easy groove. Yet toward the end of guitarist Joe Cinderella’s solo, Melle plays some insistent fills that hint at what Mingus would do in 1959 in a much more raucous and pervasive way on his Blues and Roots album. And in his take on the standard “Moonlight in Vermont,” Melle shows that he’s been listening to Monk, with some nice angular, Asiatic scales, before reverting to convention. Here and there, Melle’s composed lines hint at the kind of syncopation that Gilberto and Jobim would make famous in their bossa novas, but soon they’re swallowed up by the band’s steady swing. Time and again, Melle almost breaks out into something truly original, but pulls back.

“Weird Valley” is more typical, though, of the album. Take a driving bass riff reminiscent of “Hit the Road Jack” and give it a more sophisticated harmonic twist. Have Cinderella play some hip chords behind it. Then, have the horns restate the theme in various ways, mostly by subtle alterations to the melody and rhythm. The result is Bach-like, fugue-ishly involving, but restrained.

And restraint is the main problem I have with this album. Bari sax and trombone are both lower register and inherently slow—you’re not going to get fiery solos. They can both growl, but Melle mostly purrs amiably. Eddie Bert turns in some decent trombone playing, but nothing to get you out of your chair. Drummer Thigpen limits himself to cymbals on all but one tune, and keeps it quiet with brushes predominating. Melle’s compositions are good, but not as hip as The Modern Jazz Quartet’s or as adventurous as the Brubeck gang, to name some others who took the road more polished. It’s a little too “well mannered,” to quote the liner notes.

Yet I did enjoy Melle’s tasty baritone playing – his flutter tonguing and unison playing with Cinderella on “Nice Question,” his imaginative solo on “Long Ago and Far Way,” to mention a few memorable moments. And Joe Cinderella sounds like a pretty hip guitarist for 1956. He’s left behind the monotonous four-to-the-bar playing of the prior generation of big band guitarists. You can hear him pushing at limitations that eventually Wes Montgomery would break rhythmically and Jim Hall harmonically.

As for the sound, it’s good, if not as thrilling as some of the later ones in this series. The recording is mono, but like the best mono, it has a great sense of depth that goes a long way toward replacing the width of stereo. Long-tone instruments like bari sax and trombone take a lot of effort to play, and you get all the little variations in wind and tone and attack that let you know there’s a person behind that mouthpiece. Oscar Pettiford’s tasty bass playing is excellently reproduced—you can hear his great touch without really having to listen for it. Thigpen’s brushes may not be thrilling, but they’re natural and very detailed—you won’t wonder it that’s a brush or just noise.

If you want to put on the smoking jacket, pour a sherry, fire up the old Meerschaum, and give the tweeter the night off, this is a nice record to do it with. If you’re a student of jazz, you’ll enjoy hearing some of the things people were experimenting with in this period. But if you’re expecting “Baritone Colossus” or your classic Blue Note blowing session à la Art Blakey, you may want to save your dough for one of the Hubbard or Gordon reissues.